After four months on the job, Haines Borough Police Chief Josh Dryden has resigned. 

Dryden has been with the police department since 2014. He stepped in as interim police chief at least twice during that time before formally taking on the position in May of 2024, after months of contract negotiation. 

Reached by phone on Friday morning, Dryden said he accepted another job. His last day is Nov. 1 and he said he plans to get on the road out of the state soon after. 

Dryden sent a resignation email to borough employees and the assembly and mayor late Friday afternoon, but resigned to interim borough manager Elke Doom earlier in the day. 

Doom said staff were putting the finishing touches on a job description for a new chief and will be ready to post it soon.  

“We typically post for three weeks, three to four weeks,” she said. 

But the process of finding and hiring a new chief is likely to be slow and because Dryden is leaving in seven weeks, Doom said the assembly will probably have to hire an interim chief. 

Doom said her role will be to help with advertising the position and finding candidates but ultimately it is the assembly’s job to hire a new police chief. 

On the subject of hiring a new chief, Dryden wrote in an email that there are a few things that could be helpful to boost recruitment and encourage retention of officers and chiefs in Haines. One is the pay rate. 

“Officers and dispatchers would need a 25% wage increase to be competitive with other agencies,” he wrote in an email. “The borough has been willing to raise wages in the past few years, which is appreciated. There is more work to do.”

For anyone coming into his position, Dryden wrote that they should be approachable and able to maintain a healthy balance between being a small-town police chief and being a member of the community. 

“The department will need a seasoned leader who understands the dynamics of Haines and can help the department progress while maintaining and growing the relationships fostered over the years,” he wrote. 

When asked why he was leaving, Dryden joked that he’d told his neighbor last year that he and his family did not want to do another winter in Haines and he’s “a man of his word.” 

“There’s nothing weird going on,” he said. “It’s a new chapter in our lives.”  

That new chapter involves moving to a place in the Midwest, he wrote, though he did not specify which state they’re going to call home. 

“Summers are longer, and there’s less rain!” he wrote. 

The move also means the couple will be closer to family, which he said was a factor in their decision to leave. 

Dryden wrote that he will miss the supportive public safety team, borough staff and community.  He said he’d miss a lot of things about Haines, in particular working with school staff and students, his team and the view from the family’s living room windows. 

And, he said, he appreciated his wife Shannon and kids for trusting him when he moved the family to Alaska, for putting up with the crazy schedule that comes with being a police officer and for all of the good and bad things that come along with being a cop family. 

“I love you all,” he wrote. 

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